Below is the full top 25 list we have voted for. It’s a pretty good list that I believe adequately represents the sentiment on both /r/androidgaming and /r/android. I’ve also created a full video presenting this list with some descriptions and praises, as well as some Redditor quotes, for each of these games which I’ve linked below.

A number of devs/PR reps/community managers etc are going to be popping in over time to give a wave here in this post. Let me start by giving a big thanks to all those that helped nominate and vote these games up, and to all the devs that made such excellent games. I learned a few lessons in gathering all this data and hope to do it again in the future over subcategories etc with a few tweaks based on those lessons. Without further adieu…..

I’m on my way out of town in a couple days, but I promise I’ll release the full data set for those interested (we even have country data for part of it) and for transparency. In the future, any list I aggregate with have the transparency released the same day.

I do not believe normal, average people are going to be negatively impacted by violence in video games or TV or movies or paintball courses. I play violent video games, I still give to charity, and I’m still generous and loving with family and friends. It’s also extremely apparent that age is the biggest difference as to whether or not people believe if video games are a negative influence or not, which means public opinion should shift substantially over the next two decades.

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The debate surrounding whether video games cause real-world violence and aggression continues to rage on as it always has — especially with the launch of Grand Theft Auto V last week.

A new study from UK-based market research firm YouGov this week suggests that the more familiar a person is with video games in general, the less they believe that there is a connection between in-game violence and real-life violence.

Dr. Andrew Przybylski, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, surveyed nearly 2,000 adults in the UK, with a wide ranging mix of ages, beliefs and experience with video games. Of those surveyed, around 53 percent said they play games, with 19 percent saying they play games “most days.”

The survey found that 61 percent of UK residents believe that playing video games can be a cause of real-world violence and aggression.

Breaking down the data reveals far more interesting statistics, however. Take the age break-down, for example — most of the people surveyed between the ages of 18 and 39 disagreed that video games caused real-life aggression, while an overwhelming number of 60+ year olds said there was a link (79 percent, in fact).

In other words, the older the person surveyed, the more likely they were to believe that there’s a connection between video game violence and real-life violence. The older people surveyed also were more likely to disagree that video games can be utilized as an outlet for frustrations and aggression.

The experience and gender gaps

There were other notable gaps beside the age correlation — both gender and video game experience were picked out as part of the report.

71 percent of the women surveyed said that they believe violent video games can cause real-world aggression. This compared to 48 percent of men who agreed there was a connection.

And when looking at those people who have played games versus those who have no experience with games, the results are as you’d expect: 74 percent of those surveyed who don’t play games said games can cause aggression and violence, while 47 percent of those who play games agreed there was a connection.

Players who had experience with violent games, however, disagreed far more that there is a connection. 35 percent of people who play violent video games said violent games can lead to real-world violence.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II was the #1 game played for August. However, Raptr’s focus on this month’s review is about DOTA2 and LoL. For me, I really only cared about RIFT and the fact that their F2P subscription model continues to impress. Oddly, they did not reveal top PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 titles as they’ve done the past few months.

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RAPTR’S MOST PLAYED GAMES: AUGUST 2013 — DOTA 2 TOPS LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

A new champion has taken the field. And we’re not talking about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which is once again in at the top slot overall.

No, the big news is that after a few brief shots at the crown, Valve’s DOTA 2 surpassed Riot Games’ smash-hit League of Legends in both total players and total playtime for the month of August based on gameplay data from Raptr’s 18 million members.

Italicize that last part in your mind if you need to — Raptr’s membership skews more North America-centric than the total gaming audience, so we aren’t saying categorically that more people spent more time playing DOTA 2 than LoL. But among Raptr members, they definitely did, although it was close. Also, this list includes PC and Xbox 360 games only — Sony and Nintendo don’t let players share gameplay data publicly.

LoL vs. DOTA 2 Analysis

League of Legends shot to the top of our playtime charts due in part to its wildly popular spectator modes, tournament livestreams, and world championships. DOTA 2 officially launched (after an extended beta) on July 9 and just concluded its own livestreamed championship event, The International, which ran August 7-11.

No doubt that had a strong effect on DOTA 2′s numbers. LoL’s Season 3 World Championships just finished up last week, giving Riot a big opportunity to recoup.

But Valve’s challenger has nipped at LoL’s heels for months now. DOTA 2 first passed LoL in total players on March 3 — coincidentally, right when LoL servers went down (possibly due to a denial-of-service attack). That gave DOTA 2 a free shot at taking the lead for a day. A few isolated days followed where DOTA 2 came within a few hundred players of LoL’s total…or leapfrogged it by six or seven thousand without warning.

Those events occasionally coincided with Riot releasing major patches — typically a source of downtime for online games. But even with servers up and running at capacity, Riot’s numbers have taken a substantial hit of late. Total LoL playtime hours have dropped 13% in the last 30 days. New members in that same timeframe are up a healthy 27%, but overall unique active members are down 6%.

That suggests older, established players are drifting away, and the new players coming in aren’t engaging as deeply.

By contrast, in the same 30-day window, DOTA 2 saw an 11% increase in unique active members while new signups were down 3%. It’s the exact opposite of LoL’s problem…players are engaging long term, but the influx of new blood is starting to dip.

Pushing into the first week of September, it looks so far like a fairly even split between days favoring League of Legends and those carried by DOTA 2. With the glow of The International pretty much faded and LoL’s incredibly popular World Championships happening last week, it’s likely LoL’s numbers will angle straight up again in the middle of the month. But the recent erosion of its player base should be a serious cause for concern if the trend continues after the World Championships. And DOTA 2′s numbers prove that if Riot Games opens the door, Valve’s increasingly popular MOBA will walk right on through.

As we mentioned back in June, GameSkinny.com had opened voting for their 2nd Annual Dragon Slayer Awards in cooperation with GuildLaunch.com. They collected over 500,000 votes by the player community in 11 categories throughout this summer. Here’s the video of the award announcements. The awards summary is after the video and includes all nominees and winners. Congrats to the winners!

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2013 Dragon Slayer Awards Winners

NOTE: Both the “Hype Train” and “Most Dramatic Change” categories were removed between June and the actual awards presentation.

MIT Game Lab’s educational game Phantomation, designed to teach animation students fundamentals of both key framing and real-time animation, was named Best in Show. Other studios were awarded medals for their submissions, including the Canadian Space Agency and Schell Games.

Here’s the full list of winners, via the Serious Play Conference:

Gold Medal awards

Play Forward: Elm City Stories, Schell Games and Digital Mill (Healthcare/Medical)

Cornak, Succubus Interactive (Business)

DragonBox Algebra 12, WeWantToKnow AS (Education)

Game Over Gopher, New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab (Education)

Planting the Seed, Canadian Space Agency (Education)

Practice Operations, Muzzy Lane Operations (Education)

Ratio Rumble, New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab (Education)

Much like with other gamer and tech conferences around the world, Gamescom has tens of thousands of participants, all clamoring to play test their favorite upcoming games, see new tech, and be clued in on the latest product announcements from companies such as Microsoft, EA, and Sony.

Here are a few of of the livestream sites available to participate (in a long distance kinda way) in Cologne, Germany’s gamer fest, along with VG 24/7’s laundry list of what’s what and who’s who for Gamescom 2013.

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It’s that time of year again, when the gaming press descends on Cologne to check out the biggest games the industry has to offer and ruin their colons with meat. Pat, Sam and I will be there all of next week to play the games, attend the showcases and speak with the developers.

To re-cap everything that we’ll be seeing at the show, I’ve compiled this handy guide to make sure you don’t miss a conference or title. (Note: we will be hosting Sony and EA’s streams in separate pages on the big day, so be sure to check back Tuesday!)

First up…

The conferences:

EA: Tuesday, August 20 – 3pm UK / 4pm Europe / 7am Pacific

We know that EA is bringing at least Titanfall, Battlefield 4, Need for Speed: The Rivals, FIFA 14 and Command & Conquer to gamescom following the publisher’s blog on the matter.

It seems likely that games like Killzone: Shadow Fall, inFamous: Second Son, Driveclub, The Order: 1886 will be there in some form although we can’t say for certain yet. We’re still waiting for that LittleBigPlanet 3 announcement too.

Who and what?

Microsoft: Xbox One will be the company’s big focus at gamescom and if rumours are to be believed Microsoft’s presence will yield at least one new game announcement. Gamers seem to think it’s either Crackdown 3 or Fable 4. Truth be told we have no idea yet.

Microsoft’s stance on self-publishing was also pegged for discussion during gamescom before details on the reversal were leaked ahead of time. Microsoft’s Marc Whitten confirmed that the company would issue more details on the policy in Cologne.

Were also hoping to hear more on the Xbox One release dates, which may or may not go down at some point during gamescom. With the console out before year’s end and a TGS announcement unlikely, this is the best place for Microsoft to drop a date on us.

Game-wise we’re hoping for Dead Rising 3, Kinect Sports: Rivals, Project Spark, Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, Killer Instinct and more, but we’ll have to wait for the gamescom’s doors to open to find out more.

Nintendo: The Japanese giant makes its return to gamescom this year with a suite of Wii U and 3DS titles on the public show floor. On Wii U Nintendo will bring, “Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD, Sonic Lost World, Wii Party U, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Karaoke U, Mario Kart 8.

On 3DS Nintendo will be giving fans a chance to play Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. It’s a strong showing from the company which is something of a bounce-back after last year’s no-show.

Seeing as the publisher isn’t holding its own pre-show event, you can expect this reveal to go down at Sony’s conference. We’re none the wiser on what it is, although we can also expect showings from Watch Dogs, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag and The Crew.

Bethesda: The company has confirmed that The Elder Scrolls Online will be playable at gamescom and we wouldn’t be overly-surprised if Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Evil Within were to rear their heads at some point too.

It’s not easy keeping up with the competitive world of eSports. There are several tournaments held throughout the year, and many of them are unique to one game. More are introduced as the demand requires, and others are simply parts of bigger events.

To help remedy that Digital Trends has compiled this list of all the major eSports events remaining this year and into the beginning of next, from League of Legends to World of Tanks to Call of Duty: Black Ops II and more. It’s by no means comprehensive, but it’s close. If there’s anything important missing make sure to say so in the comments, and it will be added.

Execs from two top and one middle-of-the-road studio, plus millions (generally $2 million – $10 million in that “series”) of start-up cash from NCSoft? Huh. That’s a very unique blend of Eastern and Western gaming influences.

For me, Relic seems like the odd man out given their games haven’t exactly been massive successes. Primarily they have Dawn of War (Warhammer 40,000 related) and Company of Heroes IPs with generally average to good Metacritic ratings. However, Warhammer 40,000 is already being made by Behaviour Interactive, Canada’s largest independent game developer, due out late 2015.

If Westernized MMORPGs from Asia and Russia over the past few years have proven anything, it’s that melding concepts across continents and cultures often proves disappointing to the vast majority of players. One can only hope they take Western sensibilities and filter them through an Eastern artistic lens.

This could be a mind-blowing IP or a gigantic flop. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for something amazing, though we’ll probably have to wait four or five years for the first game. *shakes fists*

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Executives From Blizzard, Sony Online and Relic Entertainment Form Molten Games

SAN DIEGO – (BUSINESS WIRE) – Molten Games, a developer and publisher of online games, announced that the company has received a multimillion-dollar investment from Korean gaming powerhouse NCSOFT, leading the way on Molten’s Series A funding.

“Molten Games has assembled a wildly talented and experienced team, and we absolutely believe they will create and run an amazing new game experience,” said Taek Jin Kim, CEO at NCSOFT. “They’re setting the bar high for themselves, with a strong desire to shake up the online gaming space by creating something new and unique in our industry.”

Molten Games is centered in San Diego, California. Focused on breaking free from the traditional developer/publisher relationship and putting gameplay first and foremost, the company is continuing to build its talented team and first product, with more information about the game to be released at a later date.

“We created Molten Games in order to truly have control over our game development and IP, and we’re going to create something epic,” said Jungwon Hahn, CEO and co-founder of Molten Games. “Our team understands not only the creation of online games, but the ongoing management of them, better than anyone else in the industry. As we continue to build our team and work on our initial product, gameplay and player experience is going to come first with every decision.”

Molten Games, Inc. is a developer of premium online video games based in sunny San Diego. Powered by a team of top creative talent from companies including Blizzard Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment and Relic Entertainment, Molten Games is breaking the traditional developer/publisher mold in order to put gameplay and player experience first and foremost. Molten Games is backed by a multimillion-dollar Series A investment from NCSOFT.

About NCSOFT

NCSOFT, headquartered in Seoul, Korea, is the world’s premier publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games, including the critically acclaimed Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Aion, Lineage, Lineage 2 and Blade & Soul. With offices in North America, Europe, Japan, Taiwan etc, NCSOFT aims at providing fun to everyone, everywhere in the world. More information can be found at www.ncsoft.com.

See more at: http://bw.newsblaze.com/release/2013072408003500007.bw/topstory.html#sthash.rHg3bvO5.dpuf

There are some BIG surprises here. RIFT has a MASSIVE month, absolutely crushing its nearest competition and pulls in more gaming hours than the bottom half of the entire Top 20 combined.

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RAPTR’S MOST PLAYED GAMES: JUNE 2013 — NOW WITH PC AND XBOX 360-SPECIFIC TOP 20 LISTS

Aside from newcomer State of Decay and a resurgent Fable III, June’s Most Played list doesn’t hold too many surprises. Total playtime was up 16% over the previous month, however, and MOBAs League of Legends and DOTA 2 both posted significant playtime gains as well.

Note: This list, based on playtime data from Raptr’s 18 million users, includes PC and Xbox 360 games only — Sony and Nintendo don’t let players share gameplay data publicly, so that’s why no The Last of Us or Animal Crossing in the rankings.

The Share number by each game represents that title’s gameplay time as a percentage of the total time spent on the top 1000 games played by Raptr users, and is useful for comparing the relative amount of play time between particular games.

HIGHLIGHTS

Last month Rift enjoyed a big playtime bump among Raptr members due to a series of Raptr Rewards, but this month Rift’s transition to free to play was a significant factor. While we can’t quantify the F2P-related increase exactly, month over month Rift playtime is up 95%.

The rise and rise of popular free-to-play MOBAs League of Legends and DOTA 2 continued in June, with both posting their largest monthly playtime gains so far this year, up 36% and 45% respectively.

And if you’re wondering how Fable III, a game that came out in 2010, could suddenly catapult up 157 spots — it was a free download for Xbox Live Gold subscribers in the latter half of June.

State of Decay, on the other hand, earned its spot the old-fashioned way — by clearing over 250k copies in its first two days in the Xbox Live Marketplace and 500k in the first week, making it the second-best-XBLA seller after Minecraft. Not a bad debut for developer Undead Labs.

Borderlands 2 may have fallen a few spots this month, but the Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep DLC (launched on 6/25) is responsible for the largest playtime bump we’ve seen for the game so far. In the final week of June Borderlands 2 was the sixth most played game on Raptr.

A steady stream of content updates are definitely having a positive impact for Guild Wars 2 over the last three months — the Dragon Bash event and Sky Pirates of Tyria update both launched in June, and playtime was up 64% compared to the game’s low point this year, March.

PC HIGHLIGHTS

Rift and Rumble Fighter both enjoyed Reward-related boosts this month, while a free Steam weekend and sale in early June bumped Civilization V up the ranks. In the three weeks post Steam sale Civ gameplay was still about double what it had been before.

F2P MMO Marvel Heroes had a good launch, but by the end of the month it was definitely fading and won’t be in the top 20 next month, barring new content or other events to reignite the community.

XBOX 360 HIGHLIGHTS

Not a lot to report here — aside from Fable III’s rocket up the charts (discussed above), a couple other old-timers got a boost. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 playtime was up 25% month over month…and if you know why, tell us in the comments. And Dark Souls was the XBL Deal of the Week in early June.

I guess this is a blessing and a curse. I’d much rather see a product delayed for an appropriate reason (like this one) instead of having a tragic launch and massive backlash that kills a product’s chance of success. In the Shield’s new price point, I think it has a lot going for it and will keep my fingers crossed Nvidia can quickly resolve the mechanical issue AND get enough product ready for a new launch.

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Gaming portable’s release delayed to July due to mechanical issue discovered in last-minute quality assurance testing.

Portable gaming device Nvidia Shield has been delayed into July, one day before it was scheduled to launch. Explaining the delay, project manager Jason Paul said a mechanical issue was detected during last-minute quality assurance testing.

“The issue relates to a third-party mechanical component, and we’re working around the clock with the supplier to get it up to our expectations,” Paul said.

“We apologize to those who have preordered Shields and to all those who are waiting for them to go on sale. But we want every Shield to be just right,” he added.

Paul said at the time that the new price point will make the device a “home run.”

The Nvidia Shield gives gamers access to an array of gaming avenues, including Nvidia TegraZone, Google Play, and Steam. The system runs on the Tegra 4 processor and boasts 16GB of memory, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, a mini-HDMI output, a microSD storage slot, and a headphone jack.

The device also features a five-inch, 720p multi-touch display. For more on the Nvidia Shield, check out GameSpot’s preview of the device from the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.